This invention relates to mailpiece transport means and, more particular, to mean of transporting a mailpiece along a postage meter mailing machine feed deck for the printing of a postage indicia on the mailpiece.
It is a known practice to associate an inserter with a postage meter mailing machine. The inserter's function is to collate and insert a set of fill materials into a respective envelope of an envelope stream and moisten the envelope for sealing. The inserter then delivers the envelopes seriately to the feed deck of a mailing machine. A postage meter is mounted to the mailing machine and operated in concert therewith for the printing of a postage indicia on each of the traversing envelopes fed to the mailing machine by the inserter.
The conventional postage meter includes a print drum which is intended to experience a single revolution per print cycle. The print drum is generally driven by a prime mover located within the mailing machine and mechanically coupled to the postage meter print drum. The prime mover is actuated to commence a print cycle upon the encounter of a trigger mounted to the mailing machine feed deck by a traversing envelope thereby causing a control system to actuate the prime mover. Under the influence of the control system the prime mover drives the print drum such that a given peripheral velocity for indicia printing is obtained to which the linear velocity of the traversing enevelope is matched by a transport system. It is necessary to match the linear velocity of the traversing envelope with the peripheral velocity of the print drum in order for the print drum to print a quality indicia, i.e., an indicia which is not smeared or otherwise degraded. Hence, it is the function of the transport system not only to transport an envelope to the postage meter for indicia printing but also to alter the envelope speed to be matching to the given peripheral speed of the print drum. It is noted that the conventional postage meter mailing machine requires the postage meter print drum to be operated at a given speed which represents the maximum print speed. It would therefore be beneficial from a wear and noise standpoint, under appropriate circumstances, e.g., should the inserter deliver envelopes at a slow speed, if the peripheral speed of the print drum could be reduced to be matching to the slower delivery of the inserter. In order to facilitate the operation of the postage meter at a slower speed, it would be advantageous for the transport system to be able to recognize the slower envelope speed and adjust the transport speed and cause the control system to adjust the drive characteristic of the postage meter print drum prime mover accordingly.
Under certain conditions, it is preferable or desirable to further establish a base or minimum operation speed at which envelopes are delivered for indicia printing. Therefore, under such conditions, it would be of further benefit that the transport system have the capability to recognize when an envelope is received from the inserter at a relative speed below the base operation speed and increase the speed of the received envelope to the base speed. It is noted that the afore considerations has been recited as relating to postage meter indicia printing by a print drum, however, the consideration is equally applicable to other forms of printing, for example, ink jet, thermal, etc.